Chapter no.25 A Field of Weeds and Wishes

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After half an hour of rest, they'd been off to do a D-rank mission. Couldn't put those off forever, could they? Honestly, missions like this seemed to drag on forever. Pull out one weed. Oh hey, there's a few dozen more. Get them all? Time to get started on the next area. Got that done? Great job, you're about a tenth of the way there!

It didn't help that Kakashi had forbidden them all from using jutsu to speed things up. Something about teaching them a lesson in patience. Bah!

"Yeah, I get you," Sakura said, obviously having heard his sigh. "Just grin and bear it like any other D-rank. Just think; some people do this for a living. It's not so bad when you keep that in mind."

"Maybe, but I get the feeling a professional would never let it get like this in the first place," Naruto grumbled.

"Keep it down, Naruto! The client might hear you!" The pink-haired girl hissed at him.

Naruto shrugged. "Eh, I call it like I see it. Besides, she's inside and the doors and windows are closed. I can't see how she'd hear me unless I screamed it from the rooftop."

"You have a point. Still..." Sakura replied with a sigh of her own. She then spied what he was doing. "Eh, wait a second!"

"Huh?" Naruto looked up just as he was about to pluck a small yellow flower from the ground. He didn't know a lot about plants, but he knew enough to know these were weeds. And they spread fast if you let them.

"We might need to ask the client about those," Sakura said, cupping her chin. "Dandelions are technically weeds, but they have their uses. They attract bees to pollinate flowers, and their roots can draw up nutrients for other plants. She might want those left alone..."

Naruto blinked, his eyebrows rising. "Wow, Sakura. You really know your stuff."

Sakura rubbed the back of her head sheepishly and looked away, with a slight grimace. "Not really... I used to be friends with Ino, remember? Her family runs a flower shop. I just picked up a few things..."

"Oh..." Naruto cringed. That was probably a sore subject.

"I... really need to patch things up with her..." Sakura admitted. "But I've got no idea where to start. Not when I was the one who broke up our friendship..." She looked down at that, her face melancholy. Naruto guessed she was probably thinking of past times with Ino... and probably the day they went their separate ways.

Over Sasuke. But this was the first he was hearing that she was the one to end things... Yeah, he got the feeling that fixing that wasn't going to be easy.

"Well, you won't know until you try, right?"

"That's what Tenten said."

"Oh, did you meet with her again?"

Sakura nodded, seeming to brighten up a little. "Yeah, she's been giving me some good advice. And it's nice to actually hang out with a girl my age again... or anyone outside class really..."

Wait, had Ino been her only friend? And she chose to fight with her over Sasuke... huh. Well, he could agree on how great it was to finally have people to spend time with. He knew personally that being alone absolutely sucked. At least she had people she could talk to at the academy. Most of the other kids just put him down aside from Shikamaru and Choji, and they hadn't exactly talked much.

"Well anyway, what's the worst that could happen? She says: 'screw you' and walks off? At least then you can say you tried. You won't get anywhere if you just think about it all the time." Naruto said before giving her a thumbs up. "And worst comes the worst, you still have us. And Tenten, right?"

"... Yeah, I guess so. Thanks."

Things were going pretty well for his team now, Kakashi couldn't help but think as he neared his home.

Naruto was handling the Shadow Clone training method well; as in he wasn't collapsing immediately after every session. Though, today's conversation told him he'd need to improve the blond's knowledge of recent history as well as his vocabulary. Actually, better make that history in general. It also might be a good idea to get his students their own copies of the bingo book. It was a little early, sure, but having knowledge of who's who in the shinobi world couldn't hurt.

It was good to see Sakura step up on her own. He'd been sure he'd have to take her aside at some point and hammer home how badly she'd needed to improve, but thankfully that had worked itself out.

Shame it took was a near-death experience for his whole team, but the emphasis was on 'near' there.

And she'd apparently stopped dieting. That was good, though time would tell if she'd slip back into old habits. Hopefully, now that Sakura was actually training and her body was getting the fuel it needs, her physical energy would improve. She definitely had more than enough mental energy, and with that, her stores of chakra would start to see improvement.

Nothing too drastic. Sakura would never have Sasuke's reserves, never mind Naruto's, but hopefully, he'd soon be able to say they were better than 'abysmal.'

As for Naruto, he got the feeling he'd take to Sakura's gift like a duck to water. Good, with his healing power, he probably didn't have to worry about the usual drawbacks, not to mention the aches and pains that came with overdoing it. He'd have to take Naruto aside and tell him to push things a little harder, and maybe in a few weeks up the number of shadow clones.

And for Sasuke... maybe some tutoring on making use of his Sharingan's genjutsu was in order.

They were doing good, but they'd need to be better for the upcoming Chunin Exams, and they only had about a month and a half.

Finally arriving at his door, he reached for the knob...

.. And suddenly, a sound reached his ears. Loud, pounding footsteps that likely echoed through the whole city block. He turned to the source of the sound to see a massive dust cloud rushing towards him.

And at its front was a tall man, well-muscled but not overly so. He had a strong jawline, black hair shaped into a bowl cut, and, perhaps his most distinguishing feature, sported a massive pair of thick eyebrows. He wore a standard Konoha flak jacket over a green jumpsuit with orange leg warmers, rather than the blue shirt and pants most Konoha shinobi wore. A red forehead protector was tied around his waist like a belt.

"KAKASHI!" He bellowed, and as he grew near, the silver-haired man could see that there were streams of tears falling from his eyes like waterfalls.

'... Oh no...'